Publication: PLAY - Philippe Jarrigeon

PLAY is the first monograph by photographer Philippe Jarrigeon. Published by RVB Books under the artistic direction of Beda Achermann, the book brings together a collection of personal and editorial photographs,portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. PLAY is a polysemic term: a translation of "game" or "play," it resonates with the insolence and humor emanating from the images. At the same time, the term evokes acting and the central role of the model in staged work. PLAY also evokes the action of starting a video.

The images gathered together draw inspiration from and quote references specific to the television and cinema universe of the 1990s: Cher Horowitz from Clueless coexists with Carlotta Valdes from Vertigo. Wheel of Fortune, the gazpacho from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and the model of a television set converse with one another. The collection constitutes a visual library of our collective pop culture with one particularity: everything appears deviant. The sequence of images functions like channel surfing, where the glamorous coexists with a simple consumer product, the exceptional with the trivial, the beautiful with the ugly,and the overly serious with the overly comical. The photographed locations look more artificial than movie sets,while the young models parody major stars. PLAY is the parody of a logbook—that of a major Hollywood studio.

RVB Books